


A Brand New Day

by iLurked



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1855813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iLurked/pseuds/iLurked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Give me one good reason why I should let you live.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Brand New Day

**Author's Note:**

> For #wssummer week 5  
> Prompt: Morning After

It was a brand new morning: the morning after SHIELD received renewed support, and with it a renewed funding, from Congress, all because of the turning of public opinion in its favor. It was all thanks to the persuasive and telegenic Black Widow, as supported by the heroic Captain America and the dashing new agent known more popularly as the Falcon. It did not hurt that SHIELD was given a new face that the public could trust, courtesy of its charismatic every-man Director Phil Coulson.

For all intents and purposes, this was the new SHIELD, rising from the ashes of Hydra.

Of course, all of these meant nothing to Grant Ward whose days now bleed into each other. The choices he made ensured that time would no longer have any meaning in his life. After all, Director Coulson’s first order of business was to make good on his promise to put Ward in the Middle of Nowhere, Barrow, Alaska. As the saying went, out of sight, out of mind.

It was a fate worse than death, and not for the first time since his capture, he wished he had fought harder so that he was killed instead.

Just as Ward resigned himself to a day of doing nothing but reflecting on the things he had done, the door to his cell burst open.

Ward jumped up from his bunk bed, ready for anything. Maybe some of the agents guarding him decided to liven up his day and attempt to avenge their friends who were killed in the battle against Hydra.

Before he could do more than stand up, however, a blur moved into the room and slamming violently against him, causing him to stagger and lose his balance. His shirt collar was grabbed before he was dragged and slammed forcefully against his cell’s steel wall.

“Give me one good reason why I should let you live.”

Ward’s eyes widened, not just because of the unexpected attack, but because of the identity of his attacker.

Even more surprising, Ward’s feet dangled inches above the ground, held aloft by his assailant.

Ward tried to choke out his attacker’s name, but the unforgiving hold on his throat constricted his air and his ability to speak. The wounds May gave him as a going-away present, on the way to mending but still tender, throbbed painfully.

Ward tamped down his instinct to struggle, to fight for his life. He wanted the end.

As dark spots danced at the edges of Ward’s sight, a familiar voice interrupted.

“Stop!” 

”Don’t even try to—” a panicked Agent Triplett barged into Ward’s cell. However, after he took stock of what was happening inside, he straightened up. “Oh. Carry on then.”

“What?” Ward’s attacker growled at the newcomer.

“Nothing. Nothing. Except that, uh, Jemma, honey,” Trip’s voice turned cajoling. “Ward’s turning into an unattractive shade of purple. Maybe you could let up just the tiniest bit so a brother can breathe, yeah?”

Ward’s attacker, the normally mild-mannered biochemist, looked mutinous. “No.”

“Let him go, Jemma,” Trip wheedled. “You don’t want his blood in your hands. He’s not worth it.”

Ward met Simmons’ hazel gaze squarely, his one last act of bravery, but it was like looking at a stranger. Worse, he was helpless as he watched the blood lust slowly seep out of Simmons’ eyes. By increments, the choke hold on his neck loosened.

Today was not his day to die, after all.

Ward wanted to weep at the injustice of it.

“Don’t throw him,” Trip was muttering urgently. “Don’t throw him against the wall. Don’t—Argh, you threw him against the wall.”

Jarred and dazed from the impact of hitting the wall, Ward shook himself. “Why are you here?” He asked them.

“I came to kill you.” Simmons replied unflinchingly.

“And I came to save her.” Trip stated easily. “Except that apparently, you’re no match for her. So I’m here to stop her from doing something she’d regret.”

“Do you think I’d thank you?” Ward growled at Trip.

Trip merely raised an eyebrow, unconcerned with Ward’s posturing. “I’m not doing this to save your life.” He jerked a thumb towards Simmons. “I’m doing this for her.”

“I’d be doing the world a favour.” Simmons told Trip with a frown, but unlike the one she reserved for Ward, this was more like her adorable nose scrunch.

"You really don’t want to kill him." Trip’s sigh seem to have emanated from the tips of his toes. “Something changes inside of you once you’ve taken a life.”

“You mean change more than I already had?” Simmons laughed, quick and bitter.

Speaking of changes, “What happened to you?” Ward asked Simmons.

“Thanks to you and yours, all the alien artefacts housed at the Fridge were lost.” Anger began taking over Simmons again. “Guess what came into my hand.”

“The Bezerker staff.” Ward replied. “That would explain the rage, but not how you can lift me with your pinkie.”

Simmons refused to reply, but he could guess.

“You’ve been experimenting on yourself.” It was not a question. “What do you have running through your veins? The super soldier serum? Gamma rays? The centipede’s formula?”

“Why are you asking?” Simmons growled. “So you can crawl back and report me to your masters?”

“Performance enhancing drugs?” Trip hazarded. “What? I’m curious, too.”

Simmons’ brows beetled. “Nanobots, okay? I’ve got nanobots in my system.”

“Nanobots!” Trip smirked. “That was actually my next guess. But, damn, woman, why?”

“I’m doing this for Fitz. He’s not the same anymore. He lost control of his limbs and he thinks he’s now less of a man. But this? Our project is giving him purpose. It would help not only him but a lot of people similarly situated. He’s making something out of his life. But you?” By this time, she had once again reached Ward, her tiny fists bunched around his collar. “You’re a waste of oxygen.”

“Jemma.” Trip’s tone was filled with rebuke, showing that he was either very brave or insane. Simmons, after all, was now not only smarter than the two field agents combined, she was also stronger, faster and much more aggressive.

“I’m sorry.” Surprisingly, Simmons took a deep breath, released Ward. “Is this how you always feel?” She asked the former agent. “This crushing rage?”

Guilt bubbled up from within, but Ward notoriously tamped it down. Emotions were weaknesses. He would not be weak again.

“You have to control the rage.” Ward finally told her. “Don’t let it control you.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” The look of utter shock on Simmons’ face after she uttered the curse was priceless. And like a young girl caught by her mother swearing, both of her hands flew to her mouth, as if in a bid to take back the bad word.

Despite the levity of the situation they found themselves in, Trip started laughing.

“It is not funny!” Simmons snapped. “The fact that I have resorted to such filthy words to express my emotion reflects my miserable state of mind.”

“I’m sorry.” Trip got himself under control. “But man,” he told Ward. “Are you in trouble.”

“Can you let me talk to him?” Simmons asked Trip. “In private? Please.”

Trip hesitated, then turned to Ward. “Know this: if you try to hurt her, if you try anything, you will die. And I will swear to my dying breath that I witnessed the entire thing and that everything she did was in self-defence.” He swept out.

Simmons gingerly sat down on Ward’s bunk and looked like she was ready to cry. “How do you live like this?” Her hands clasped her chest as if she wanted to reach in and wrench out her heart. “Tell me how to make it go away.”

He couldn’t. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. It never did went away.

“Go to May.” He told her.

“I can’t.”

“She would help you.”

“I know!” Simmons threw her hands up. “But I don’t want her to. Her plate is full enough as it is with Coulson and with Skye. Plus, we are rebuilding SHIELD from nothing. That is much more important than me or my out of control emotions.”

“Translation: you don’t want them to know how much of a mess you are.”

“They’d pull me off active duty. SHIELD is desperate for agents as it is.” Her head fell into her hands, a fatal mistake under normal circumstances, but their circumstance was anything but normal. “Look at me. I came here to kill you. I’m a loose cannon.”

“Trip—”

“Trip doesn’t understand.” Simmons looked up the ceiling. “He thinks I can control this. I tried, but I can’t.”

Pity mixed with the guilt. Ward knew that Simmons was ill-equipped with the hodgepodge of feelings that were assailing her. But he was nothing if not an opportunist. “Then kill me. I promise you everything will be better.”

“I could.” She glared at him. “I could reach out and easily snap your spine. The temptation is too hard to resist.”

In the space between heartbeats, Ward actually felt afraid. Then, his death wish once again insinuated himself. Death seemed preferable to the limbo he trapped himself in.

Unfortunately, the biochemist was not yet finished. “But death is too good for you. Instead, I think that I would rather sever a vein to stop your brain from sending impulses to your spine.”

Ward paled and he unconsciously took a step back.

“You think you’re trapped now?” She continued, her eyes burning in rage. “Imagine a life when you’re fully conscious but trapped in your own broken body.”

Fortunately for Ward, she seemed to have gotten hold of herself. He watched closely and cautiously as she took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry.” She finally said, proving to him that she was a much stronger person that he was. “I lost it. Again.”

Ward nodded, grateful beyond words to see once again the woman he had gotten to know at the bus, instead of the monster that he helped create.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “For everything.”

“You should be.” Simmons sighed and closed her eyes. “Sometimes, I have a hard time telling which emotions are real and which are manufactured. Help me. Please.”

Ward could almost see the path diverging in front of him. His choices in the past led him to his situation today; and indubitably his choice now would greatly make a difference in his life. He felt that finally, his checkered past could be good for something.

He owed her this. He also knew that he had done a lot of bad things in his life, he had made a lot bad choices, but maybe by doing this, his atonement can begin.

Ward came to a decision.

"The rage will never go away. You can only channel it." Ward walked in front of her and held out a hand for her to grasp, a handhold in the pit of rage she had fallen in. “Let me help you.”

Slowly, Simmons reached for his much larger hand and clasped it as if it was her last lifeline.

She wouldn’t let go.

Until, “Simmons,” Ward was forced to groan out. “You’re crushing my hand.”

She grinned maliciously before letting his hand go. “That’s the last time I’m listening to Trip. That made me feel loads better.”

Ward opened and closed his hand, in an attempt to get the feeling back.

“I may still chose to kill you later.”

“I know.”

She nodded, satisfied that they understood each other. “I’ll request that you be released to our custody. We, that is, Trip and I, we’re staying with Fitz at the medical facility where most of agents injured from the Hydra attack are being housed. You will help, or you will suffer. And don’t even think of escaping. You would be injected with nanobots that could not only track your whereabouts, they could also control your movements. You’ll be my little puppet.”

Ward nodded.

As the door closed after Simmons, Ward began collecting his meagre possessions.

It may seem that he was exchanging one prison for another, but it looked like it was the beginning of a brand new day for him, after all.


End file.
